Monday, August 18, 2014

I
never thought of life here in Palestine as an action movie, or maybe it’s more
of a mix between romantic ,action, and drama, the perfect combination for
entertainment. Why would I really?

Yet I
started to consider life here as such after an interesting conversation with
the sweetest Jewish American group. We were talking about the situation here,
and of course “the Wall” was included, and the topic of “crossing” the Wall
came up. I told them we have the checkpoints, if they were too much to handle
Jerusalem residents can go through a checkpoint on a bypass road, which is
easier since they assume you’re a settler and you’d go right through no
questions asked. Or, and this was the most interesting option, some Palestinian
youth who don’t have blue IDs to let them pass or Israeli permits would simply
climb off the wall with the assistance of a rope and a ladder.

At
that thought this girl -she was one of those free-spirited, full of life and
happiness characters- jumped in excitement and said, “You mean like Omar?” I
laughed my heart out at the thought, well Hani Abu Assad sure did something
right.I told
her, “Exactly like Omar”. Then she resumed, “So cool! Now I could go back and
tell my boyfriend that I saw the Wall that Omar climbs to see his girlfriend.”

I
laughed again, it was ironically funny. But in my head I was saying, “Oh shit.”

It
never occurred to me what impact Palestinian films like “Omar” and “Paradise
Now” could have on people, especially non-Palestinians, or people who are
associated to the Palestinian\Israeli conflict but not viewing matters from a
Palestinian perspective. And that day, I was introduced to one of these
perspectives.

It
was that this Wall, this horrendous-ugly-disgusting Wall, was actually –partly-
the reason behind an amazing tragedy. One hell of a story to tell, where you
have the hot Palestinian hero climbing off walls ,shooting Israeli soldiers,
being tortured, and agreeing to collaborate with his enemy for the sake of his
one true love. Leaving all horrendous and “violent” details out, if we look at
it that way, “Omar” would be the perfect fairytale, it can even work as a
Disney movie.

The
problem is, it’s NOT a fairytale. It’s too realistic.

And
this brings us to the main issue, will romanticizing the Palestinian reality do
us more harm than good?

I
spent four months of my last semester in college trying to figure this out. I
literally criticized the hell out of this amazing Native American activist
because she was romanticizing herself, her community, and her cause. But to be
totally honest the research about this Native American was a bit personal to
me, I was criticizing her while in fact I was criticizing myself. I was also a romanticizer
of reality, like her, it was the perfect escape. If we looked at matters here
truthfully, without filters, or adjustments, I don’t think we could handle it.
I know I couldn’t.

But
have we taken it too far? Making it almost desirable? … Maybe we did.

Growing
up I fell in love with the image of the young Palestinian guys with their Kuffiyes’
wrapped around their heads and faces only showing their eyes, and their hands
clutching the rocks so hard they bleed.

Fell
in love with the image of the slingshot in their hands, and that revolutionary
gleam in their eyes.

Fell
in love with the fire burning so bright coming out of the Molotov Cocktails
thrown by the hands of the revolutionists and their full of rage and power
screams while sending it through the Israeli barriers to cross them
triumphantly.

So
when Omar, this young handsome Palestinian, was presented to us as the
courageous hero who climbs Israeli Walls so he’d be closer to his friends and
the love of his life, of course we’re going to fall head over heels in love
with him. It’s the image of the Revolutionist from ages and ages ago, but this
time brought in this attractive form to attract people other than “us” –other
than Palestinians. We are familiar with this image of the revolutionary
Palestinian, but not everyone worldwide is, mostly worldwide –when it comes to
Palestinians- this image is related to terrorism. Not once the question of “Why”
has occurred, why are these young Palestinians throwing rocks? Why are they
shooting Israeli Soldiers? They sure look violent and angry, but why?

The “why”
never mattered, because it wasn’t in the benefits of these people spreading
these images, until Palestinians themselves took matters into hand, like Hanny
Abu Assad. Even though I’m not a huge fan of “Paradise Now”, because it seemed
to me a bit of an audience-pleaser (international audience), but it was the
first film exposed to foreign audience that presented the question of “Why?”

According
to Dr. Bader Araj’s research, “Suicide Bombing as Tragedy and Interaction: The
Case of the Second Intifada”, there are many motives and reasons that answer
the “why” question. Among the motives is this one: “Desire to regain one’s
reputation due to the suicide bomber having engaged in shameful behavior, such
as collaboration with the enemy.” And this is the one Hanny Abu Assad chose for
his movie “Paradise Now”, where we have this young Palestinian who blows
himself up in an Israeli bus, in order to honor the name of his disgraced
family. His father was a collaborator with the Israeli Intelligence, meaning
his father would “snitch” on his fellow Palestinians that are designated by
Israel as terrorists, and hence the Israeli Intelligence would wipe them off the face of earth.

In
Palestine it’s not easy being a collaborator, especially if you get caught. Not
only will your life be ruined or eliminated, but your family will suffer of
disgrace and alienation as well. (And here I’m not going to discuss if these
methods of punishment are justifiable or not, it’s another topic all on its
own). Now if we look closely at the motives behind Abu Assad choosing this
particular motive to commit suicide bombing, it might not seem so clear. At
first it might feel it’s because of the Palestinian barbarians who executed
Said’s –the suicide bomber in the film- father as punishment for his betrayal
of his people. But the question doesn’t
stop there, automatically you’ll have to ask some follow-up questions like,
“Why did the Palestinians execute him? Why did he become a collaborator?” …
etc. These questions among others will lead to one result: the gruesome Israeli
Occupation.

We
witness this same notion of driving people to ask critical questions in “Omar”,
where we know this young man and his friends shot dead an Israeli soldier at an
Israeli checkpoint. In this film it’s a little bit clearer, where we see him
climbing the Wall and getting shot at by Israeli soldiers, or when he’s
humiliated by Israeli soldiers when he’s on his way back home and they end up
beating him up, and in the end he simply sums up the motive loud and clear when
his friends ask him “Why now?” (in reference to why do their operation of
killing the soldier that night) and he replies, “Everyday we wait is another
day of occupation.” In other words, resistance has to happen, there is no other
way. And this would push towards the direction of other questions, such as: “What
is the Israeli Occupation? When did it start? So this territory was originally
Palestinian? So Israel was also founded on a Palestinian land? … etc”

Yet
all of these signs might not be clear to everyone, in the end it is “pretty
cool” that a guy would go through so many dangers for the girl he loves. But
while fantasizing about how “cool” that is, the other intense motives were a
bit undermined. He was not only fighting for the love of his girl, it was also
for the security of this love (though I’m kind of allergic to the word
“security” giving the circumstances), for a safe haven to resort to, for a
place to call home, for a place where you would simply “walk” home instead of climbing walls. The Palestinian struggle isn’t a struggle for the land, the olive
tree, the mosque or the church: it’s a struggle for the people. The reason we
do all that we do is because we love our cause, and our cause is our people.

So
many times on so many occasions I would say to myself, screw this I’m done with
this Palestine drama, but then I realize it’s not my decision to make.
Thousands and thousands of Palestinians were killed, injured, displaced over
and over again since 1948. It is a struggle for life that’s been occurring and
reoccurring for years, and I can’t just give it up. This fight for our people
is a fight of resorting justice and regaining the safe haven we lost years ago.
Who am I to give that up?

It’s
about our people, it was always about the people, about love, friendship, and
restoring the sanctity of life.

So
the question of whether romanticizing the situation is a downside or the
opposite, still remains.

Sometime
we need to beautify the situation a little, to make it more bearable. The real problem occurs when we fall in love with this beautified version of reality.
After all, who wouldn’t want to be a revolutionist? A freedom fighter? But our
hearts could easily get heart-broken and we’d fall out of love with this image
when one of these revolutionists gets killed by an Israeli bullet. Waking up of
that fantasy is devastating, all of us glorified Muhammad Abu Khdeir and
praised him as a heroic martyr, but the reality says that kid was terrified to
death. He’s been kidnapped, tortured, and burnt ALIVE. Nothing can beautify
this picture, EVER!

That’s
why it’s important to remember on what basis these movies and stories are
built, they’re not a fantasy or one heck of an agonizing tragedy. It’s real
life, it’s our daily life, so there should be tremendous effort to not
undermine it.

When
the American group had to leave Ramallah and go through the Israeli checkpoint,
I felt horrible they had to go through it. It’s never a pleasant experience to
go through, but when I talked to the same full-of-life girl, she said, “Don’t
worry, it’s okay. It’ll make a good story to tell”. I wish I had her optimism,
but how could I when the checkpoint isn’t a one-time experience to me? It’s a
humiliating process that I have to go through almost daily.

So I
only wish at some point of the future we will reach the stage where the
situation would merely be “good stories to tell”, but for now let’s emphasize
the impact they have on us as our actual daily reality.

Additional
information:

1.Bypass
roads are Settlers-only (Jewish only) roads that connect the illegal Israeli
Settlements in the West Bank with Jerusalem, but if you have the “Blue ID” and
a car with yellow plates (Israeli plates) you can pass through the checkpoint
on these roads without any obstacles or humiliation.

2.“Blue
ID” is the legal document Palestinian residents who live in East Jerusalem
hold, and it’s not really an ID, it’s a permit that allows us (East Jerusalem
residents) to move “freely” between the West Bank and Jerusalem through the
checkpoints, but not Gaza. And it gives us the “permission” to live in
Jerusalem as well, but it has to be renewed regularly in order to gain the
“rights” to move and live “freely”.

3.Palestinians
in the West Bank have the “Green ID”, and they can’t pass through the
checkpoints or the bypass roads’ checkpoints unless they have Israeli permits,
which are extremely difficult to obtain.

4.The
Wall mentioned above, is the Separation\Annexation\Apartheid Wall, just so
we’re clear. Not the security fence thing they keep inventing, it’s a real
cement wall. Ask whoever came to visit here, or Google it.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Most of you have probably heard
of Fox News most famous bully Sean Hannity, personally I never bother to listen
to anything he says, but … I do enjoy it when others replay what he says and
–well- make fun of him and point out his biases, like Jon Stewart or Russel
Brand.

In this video, he’s responding to
Russell Brand’s criticism and satire of his –Sean Hannity- twisted logic and
barbaric bullying of his Pro-Palestine guests. You’re only considered to be a
respectable guest on his show if you’re pro-Israel. The interesting part
though, is that one of his guests makes the terrible mistake of admitting that
there are “two sides” to the story. The second he blurts out these simple little
words of truth, Hannity starts playing his same repeated -old- record, “3000 rockets!
3000 rockets! 3000 rockets into Israel! Rockets! 3000! .... !” and he would go on
forever if he could.

This video is almost over a
week old, so now the 3000 rockets are much more. According to your beloved “IDF”blog, they’ve reached 4000. Terrifying right? I mean you’ve said it
yourself Hannity, what if the United States was being targeted with over 3000
rockets? And I quote your words literally, “If 3000 rockets were fired into
America, wouldn’t you obliterate the infrastructure of the group responsible?”
True words of wisdom Hannity, really, I’m impressed you have some kind of
logic.

So, let’s apply this logic of
yours on the situation one more time. The statistics I’m about to share were
published on August, 9th 2014, so keep in mind the numbers have
definitely increased.

Until 12:00 pm on the 9th
of August there have been 5635 Artillery Shells attacks, 5630 Air Strikes, and
2450 Gunboats attacks over Gaza. There are over 1903 murdered Gazans by these
attacks, in addition to over 10,625 damaged houses (whether completely
destroyed or partially).

Now not-so-dear Hannity, when the
statistics say there are over 5630 Israeli Airstrikes –and here I’m not
even talking about the artillery shells
or gunboats attacks- over Gaza it doesn’t mean only 5630 rockets. No no, every
airstrike bombs several “targets”, as the IDF likes to call them, and these
so-called targets (that till this moment are mainly unarmed
civilians) could vary from 60 to 100, and by the end of the day Israel hits
over 150 “targets” (100-200 locations, which are either houses, medical
centers, schools, mosques, playgrounds …etc).

Now it’s time to use your
imagination.

Imagine how many rockets have
been fired into Gaza when you have over 5000 airstrikes targeting over a 100
locations daily. Can you imagine that? I sure can’t. The number of rockets
would be beyond tremendous, too huge that Israel needed to request an emergency
renewal of US ammunitions! As Jon Stewart has put it, “They were running out of
shit to blow up”. Just try to think of what this actually means.

It means they have used most of
their ammunition! And here you are, arguing over and over again about how
inhumane and unrealistic it is that Hamas fired 3000 thousand rockets into
Israel! Even though, according to your logic, it’s only reasonable that Hamas
would respond this way. I mean, wouldn’t you obliterate the infrastructure of
the group responsible of firing this amount of rockets into your country?

Sir, your double standards and
one-sided views are really getting annoying, and I’m only using the word
“annoying” just to be polite.

If you want to criticize
something or someone so passionately then please at least have ALL the
information, and not just pick whatever piece of news suits you. Journalism
doesn’t work that way, journalism is about being passionate, true, and a
deliverer of facts. Not using whatever facts you want to serve your own biased
agenda.

In short Mr. Hannity, GROW UP!

P.S. If you need reliable sources
for information, just let me know, since you’re not really doing a very good
job finding them.